Secrets of Light Academy

Chapter 10: Popular (Pt. 2) +Extra

ABBEY

I'm Abbey Davis. I'm eleven now, and I'll be twelve in a month or so. I've been attending this new school for almost a year, and I can definitely say I have achieved popularity. I know the names of everyone in the entire school. Literally everyone. And everyone knows my name. Literally everyone.

I'd like to say I'm really enjoying myself, but I'm not. I don't know why that is. I have more friends than I can count, so why do I still feel... alone?

Wait, there is one person who isn't my friend; a classmate named Stacey. Last year, I asked her to become friends, but she declined. For some reason it really ticked me off. She was the "class nerd" before, but now sometimes people from other grades come for her help, too (accept for me, I haven't missed homework a day since).
Sometimes people even come to me for help because Stacey's too busy. Since when did I become a part of that little business of hers?

And by the way, I'm sure you've noticed already but my speech has greatly improved. After she rejected my generous request of friendship, I studied day and night. I can say for one hundred percent certain that I have the largest vocabulary of all the sixth graders, perhaps even of all the students in the school. She'll never catch me off guard like that again! Consideration means to deeply and thoroughly think about something, typically over a longer period of time. See!

As of now, life is normal. In fact, almost too normal. Nothing much else has really changed this past year, but I couldn't brush off the feeling that something was going to ruin everything. Something was coming, and it would flip my whole world right upside down.

"Eeeeee! Yes yes yeessss!" Angela squealed.

"What? What? What?" I asked.

"Look look look! I was invited to the party! Ryan's birthday party!" She bounced up and down.

"I got an invite, too. Does he throw fun parties or something?" I pulled out my phone and showed her my own copy of the digital invite.

"Omigosh yes yes yessss he does. Ryan's super rich so he has like, bouncy castles and pro face painters and crazy food and everything! He's got a pool and a trampoline, too!" She squealed some more.

Within five minutes, everyone was squealing. Sounds like I'm going to have to attend this party if I want to maintain my social status. I'm not really into that kind of thing, but whatever.

The next few days were also normal, except all anyone would talk about is the party. Time passed slowly until Friday was finally here.

"Okay, quiet down everyone. Before you all leave, you will each recieve a work booklet. This is a take-home test, so please return it completed fully by Monday. It WILL be included on your report cards. That is all." Our teacher announced.

"Of all weekends, why this one?" Sonia groaned.

"No no nooo! This Saturday's Ryan's partyyyyy." Angela mopped.

They're so whiny. We've got today, most of tomorrow and all of Sunday. The problem is, they'll complain and just steal Stacey's answers in the end. Why is she still doing that? She should just keep her work to herself.

I walked home alone today. I told everyone I wanted to hurry up and finish my homework so I could come to the party on Saturday, but I ended up taking a detour to the duck pond. I wanted a break from "popularity" for a little bit.

I've only been to the duck pond once before, but it's a nice, isolated, quiet and peaceful place to be. I walked up and over the worn-down dirt trail to the pond. It was surrounded by flowers and other plants, it had a nice big log for sitting on, and a person feeding the ducks was there as well. I was a bit disappointed. I wanted to come here alone, thank you very much. The closer I got, the more familiar this person became. Hey... is that...